Ninja Girl

“Is it empty?”

“No,” Anya called back. She was hanging from a rooftop, peering through the window of a warehouse. The room where Ryerson had taken Nick had been a building on the outskirts of the warehouse district. Knowing that they couldn’t get very far with Nick in the condition he was, they had decided to move further into the warehouse district to find somewhere to lie low.

Anya swung down from the rooftop and landed in a crouch on the ground far below. “But it does look fairly abandoned,” she continued. “Which may be our best bet. After all, I’m assuming eventually we’ll need to plug in your laptop, so at that point we’ll need an outlet with power.”

“Good point,” agreed Nick. “So you’re thinking this is the place?”

“Yes. Come.” She reached out a hand and helped Nick onto his feet. Nick let out an unbidden grunt of pain as he rose. He had been fine for the most part since the torture, especially while he kept moving, but he had been sitting to rest for some time while Anya checked out the nearby warehouses for a potential hideout. His insides had just enough time to settle, and now standing and moving again was reigniting the fire that fueled the pain.

“Are you sure you’re going to be all right?”

Nick winced but forced a smile onto his face. “Why Anya, you almost sound worried about me.”

“If I just dragged your heavy carcass all this way only to have you die on me now then I’m going to be pretty annoyed. I had originally planned to leave you behind, after all.”

“I’ll be fine. How are we getting in here?”

“There’s chains on all the doors, and I don’t want to announce our presence by removing them. The windows are unprotected, though, probably since they’re so up high. I can get up to the roof and open one from there, and then lower you through.”

“Good plan, except for the part about how I get up to the roof.”

Anya nodded. “I know. I have a way, but you’re going to have to jump. Are you feeling up to it?”

Nick grimaced, but did not want to tell Anya the truth about how he felt just then, so he said, “I guess I have to be.”

As it turned out, Anya’s “way up” involved climbing a makeshift pyramid of crates and shipping containers that were stacked near the wall of a neighboring warehouse. The final step involved running down the slope of the roof of that warehouse, out onto the shipping container, and jumping from there to the warehouse that was their actual goal.

“I’ll go first,” Anya said as they stood on the first roof. “As I’m sure I’ll have to catch you or at least help you up.”

“At least you have confidence that I can make it at all,” Nick said optimistically.

“Not really. But at least if you fall short here you’ll probably only break a bone or two instead of outright killing yourself.”

“You really are the light on a gloomy day,” Nick spat.

Anya made the jump in the way that she seemed to do everything: with great ease. She turned around and planted herself firmly near the edge of the roof before waving for him to follow suit.

As he had the day before, he backed up about as far as he could go in order to give himself as much room to build up his speed as possible. He crouched down in a ready stance, attempting to psych himself up, and then, wincing through the pain, took off. He made it about five steps before slipping on the aluminum roof, slick as it was with the morning dew, and went down hard. He tumbled down the slope until it dropped him out onto the shipping container and he finally came to a stop.

“Ow,” he moaned.

After a couple of minutes he was finally back in control of enough of his faculties to push himself up onto his feet again. He noticed Anya standing on the roof across the way, hands on her hips, foot tapping impatiently.

“I’m okay!” He called, waving a hand at her. “I’m okay.”

He climbed back up the roof, this time deciding he did not need quite as much space as he originally thought. This time he made it without slipping, though he had misjudged the distance and the number of steps and was forced into a last minute quick step adjustment that slowed his momentum some before the jump. Still, he managed to leap across pretty much the entire gap, this one about eight feet. He came up a little short, but was able to grab onto the edge of the roof as it came up above his head.

“Nick!” Anya cried in frustration. She dropped to her belly and grabbed onto his arms, which was fortunate for Nick as right at that moment he lost his grip on the roof. Both Anya and Nick grunted from the resistance, but she managed to hold on tight. Groaning, she pulled Nick up and onto the roof.

Nick collapsed onto the rooftop, breathing heavily with exhaustion. “You are truly superhuman, lady.”

“I’d have to be to carry your dead weight.”

“You say the sweetest things,” grumbled Nick.

“I thought you said you were going to be less annoying.”

“Oh, I’m sorry. Was that annoying? It was supposed to be bitter.”

“Let’s just go,” Anya said, moving on to another side of the roof. She swung down, and for a moment disappeared from sight. Nick heard the creaking sound of a window pane that hadn’t moved in years and then she was back up on the rooftop.

Together they worked to lower him down and through the window. Once he was about as far along as she could help him with, she let go and he dropped down onto some crates that were stacked near the window. He stood there, arms out, and waited for Anya to come through.

Anya swung in through the window, holding onto the ledge and planting her feet on the wall. She managed to pull the window shut then push off the wall. She sailed through the air in a graceful arc that ended with her landing on the ground, knees bent akimbo, arms straight out, like she was an Olympic gymnast.

She straightened and noticed Nick still standing up on the crates, arms out like he was holding something, face frozen in a look of awe.

“Why are you still up there?”

“I thought… I thought I would be helping you.”

“Why?”

Nick shook his head and let his arms drop to his sides. “You know? I have no idea.”

Aside from being abandoned and easy to enter, another reason Anya had picked this warehouse was because it had an office area inside of it. That gave Nick a space to sit down in a chair and set up his laptop. So he got to work right away.

He started with the file that Holly had shown him, hoping that there was something specific about the file that had set them off, and that was the reason they had picked it. He read through the file five or six times, but could not really find anything that stood out to him as being related to their situation.

So he began the long and tedious task of going through the files one by one. Most of the files he only looked at for a second or two before deciding whether they were useless or not. Anya only stayed in the room for the first few minutes while he was still setting up. After that she disappeared, saying she was going to “go patrol.” The rest of the time Nick spent alone.

Eventually he looked up from the computer and stretched. Somehow, hours had gone by without him even noticing. His eyes were tired, his body ached, and he was feeling hunger gnawing at his belly. Normally he ate, at the least, three square meals a day. Since meeting Anya he had mostly been too busy to think much about it. Just sitting here now, it was beginning to set in on him just how long it had been since he had eaten anything. There was a mini fridge in the office with him, but he could not bring himself to trust whatever it was he might find inside. Also, they may have been breaking and entering, but that did not make them thieves. Probably the less that went missing from inside the warehouse, the better.

Nick went in search of Anya to inform her of his predicament. He found her – which somehow did not surprise him – standing on a crate and staring out of a window. She agreed to go get them food.

“Do you have cash?” She asked.

“Yeah, a little. I figured we would use my card, since you didn’t seem to have any qualms about using it earlier.”

“Yes, but, at the time we did not know if Ryerson were aware that you were helping me. Now we know that they are and they might be able to monitor spending on your credit.”

“You really think so?”

Anya shrugged. “It’s better not to risk it.”

Nick sighed but had no strong argument against what she was saying. He gave her what little cash he had and got back to work.

Hours later, once more tired and aching, but at least fed, he again rose from the computer and stretched. He looked around just outside the office area, but could not see Anya from his vantage point. He rubbed his chin thoughtfully, not really wanting to return straight to the computer. On a whim, he decided to do a couple runs through the kata Anya had taught him. To his surprise, by the end of it he felt pretty refreshed, and so he decided to go search for Anya.

He found her in a back area of the warehouse. She was hanging from a rafter, doing chin ups. Her top was untied and hanging down around her lower legs, leaving only a tightly tied cloth serving as a bra covering her upper body. Nick’s eyes went wide as he watched her, not sure if he should interrupt her workout or not. A moment later the decision was taken out of his hands.

Noticing him standing there, she immediately let go of the rafter and dropped to the ground. She straightened up and wiped the sweat from her brow. “It is creepy to have an audience,” she announced.

“Sorry!” Nick said, embarrassed. He turned away quickly, as she had not bothered to cover up after landing. Before him, a large support beam had some kind of padding tied around it at about head level. Eyes narrowing inquisitively he stepped over to it and patted it. “What’s this? One of your training things?”

“It’s for you,” she said, stepping over to the beam. She was busy tying up her top, much to Nick’s relief.

“Me?” he asked, surprised.

Anya patted the padding. “That’s right. We need to strengthen your lower body. We can strengthen your upper body, too, but it will take longer. You use your lower body all the time so it already has some muscle definition. Even if it’s not visible.

Nick looked down and considered his baggy pants. “Well, not much is visible in these. But… how is this supposed to strengthen my legs?”

“It’s a target. I want you to do a jump kick on it, and then push off to land on your feet again.”

Nick stared at her. He wanted to say something like, “Tell me you’re joking,” or “You must be crazy,” but decided she would not respond too well to either of those. So instead he motioned to the padding and said, “Uh, I don’t think I can jump that high.”

Anya looked at the padding and then at Nick, and then back to the padding. “You’re right. I’m sure you can’t. I’ll adjust it. Have you run through your kata today?”

“Yes,” Nick declared proudly. “Twice.”

“Do it again.”

“What?” Nick deflated.

“Do it again. I need to make sure you’re doing it right. And with enough force. If you don’t put any power behind it, you’re not getting anything out of it.”

Nick choked back a groan and complied. For a third time he ran through the kata, but this time with commentary. “Further from your body,” she would say. “That move is a block. You don’t want to let the blow get too close.” Or “More force behind that punch. You’re attacking your opponent, not flirting with them.”

With Anya’s directing it took him about twice as long to run through it. By the time he had finished, so had she. “That’s still a little high up,” he told her, looking at the padding’s new position.

“Any lower and you won’t have to jump to reach it,” she replied. “Or have time to react and land on your feet.” She patted it again. “Go on, give it a try.”

Nick sighed, but consented. He took a quick run up to it, jumped, and kicked out his foot. He hit the pad but just kind of kept going in to it. He landed with one foot on the ground and the other still caught up on the pad.

“What,” said Anya, something that almost sounded like horror in her voice, “do you call that?”

“A… jump kick?”

“Who would call that a jump kick?”

Nick freed his foot so he could stand back down normally. His face was red with embarrassment. “Well you didn’t give me a specific thing to do. You said ‘do a jump kick’ so I jumped and kicked. What do you want from me?”

“You’re right,” she said, stepping over to him. “It’s my fault. I shouldn’t have expected you to have any idea what you’re doing. Here. Stand like this.” She struck a pose with one foot in front of her and one foot behind. “Bend your knees. You want to feel like a spring. Always kick with you back leg. Bring it up and in like this,” she made the motion, “and then kick it out like this.”

Nick did his best to imitate her movements. Just balancing on one foot was difficult enough, but balancing and following her slow, purposeful movements without looking ridiculous was nearly impossible.

“That’s the idea,” Anya said to Nick’s surprise. “Or… close enough, anyway. That is your standard side kick. You want to try to do that while jumping. Thus, a jump kick. When you lift off bring in your other leg like this.” She lifted her left leg and brought it in, striking what looked to Nick like a dance pose. “That way it’s ready to spring back to the ground at the end of your jump. Now, for the actual jumping. Assume the same pose I showed you for kicking. Kicking leg always in back. Two steps, and put all your weight into your leading leg so you can push off of it. Hit the target with your kick, push off, land. Ten times with each foot. Let’s see it.”

Nick stared blankly at her. “If I try and do that, I’m going to fall on my ass and probably bust my head open on this concrete floor while I’m at it.” He stomped with one foot on the hard floor for emphasis.

Anya looked down at the floor and then back up at him. “So try not to fall,” she said. Nick gave her a look that he hoped said, “Come on,” so that he would not have to say it aloud. Anya let out a sigh of annoyance. “Fine. One second.”

She disappeared into the back for a few moments and when she came back she was carrying a thin twin sized mattress. She dumped it on the ground in front of the column. “There. Is that better?”

Nick considered the thinness of the mattress with a hesitant grimace, but figured it best not to argue the point further. It was, he reflected, at least something more than landing straight on the floor.

So he took a shot. He followed Anya’s direction, starting with the ready stance, taking exactly two steps, jumping, and kicked out. He hit just below the target, and with too much momentum and too little strength remaining to push himself away from it. He just essentially crumpled up into himself until he couldn’t anymore, and then fell straight down. At the last moment he remembered to try and get his other foot under him so he could land, but it was too late. He hit the mat hard with a cry of pain. He lay on the mat, groaning, and rolling back and forth in an attempt to come to rest on a spot that did not feel red hot with pain.

“That,” Anya said, so surprised that she had difficulty forming words, “was pathetic.” She let him wiggle uncomfortably on the mattress for a few more seconds and then said, “Come on. Try again.”

“Really?” Nick asked.

“Really. Nine more times with the right foot, ten more times with the left foot.” Nick groaned, but rolled onto his stomach so he could push himself up and comply.

The rest of the kicks went somewhat better than the first. No matter what, he never seemed to be able to find the strength to really push himself away from the beam, but most of the time he could more or less land on his hind leg, even if he collapsed afterward. When he finished the first ten kicks he switched feet, but it was clear he was tiring rapidly. Most of these kicks he failed to even hit the target, and the final kick he really more just hopped than jumped. He did not manage to kick on that attempt at all. He stumbled into the beam, wrapped his arms around it, and laid his head against the cool metal, breathing hard.

“Are all Americans this out of shape?” Anya asked, incredulous.

“Probably about half of them,” Nick admitted between breaths. “The other half are body builders and fitness nuts.”

Anya crossed her arms, looked away, and in a low, somewhat bitter sounding tone said, “I suppose it would have been too much to ask to end up in one of their bedrooms.”

Nick decided to let that one slide. He was not entirely sure he was supposed to have heard it in the first place.

She turned back to him. “How has the search been going? Have you found anything useful?”

Nick shook his head and collapsed into a sitting position down onto the mattress. “No, not really. Most of it is proving to be bills of sales and random ambiguous work orders. Not that I really know what I’m looking for. I mean, it’s not like I’m going to find a random document that says, ‘Hey, this is what we’re doing to ninja girl Anya.’ Mostly I’ve just been looking for any kind of reference to anything that looks remotely Japanese, or anything that seems really out of the ordinary. So far, the most notable thing I’ve seen is a number of references to a ‘Project Eurydice’ and a word I think is Japanese. I think it’s pronounced kuroba?”

Anya froze, though with how statuesque she normally was it could be difficult to tell. She spoke, her voice hushed, almost as if she were afraid of it being heard.

“What did you say?”

“Project Eurydice and kuroba?”

Anya bent down, grabbed Nick by the shirt, and hauled him to his feet. She pulled him up to her until their faces were bare millimeters apart. He could feel her hot breath blasting his face as she hissed, “Do. You have. An address?”

“No,” squeaked Nick. “Well, yes. I mean, no. I mean, maybe?”

“Which is it?”

There was a rage boiling inside Anya, the likes of which Nick had never seen before. Even when she had threatened to take his life earlier after the incident in the I.T. room she had not seemed nearly this angry. Honestly, until this moment, he had not been fully convinced she was even capable of strong emotion. Now she was hitting him with anger so intense it seemed to be radiating off her in microwaves.

“I… I don’t have a definite address, but now that I think about it one of the documents was a purchase order for something pertaining to the Eurydice project and it had a delivery address on it. That might be where we need to go!”

Anya shoved him and he stumbled backwards. He was shocked when he somehow managed to stay standing. “Get it.” She demanded.

She did not need to ask twice.